Auckland Art Gallery has brought back the fundamental practice, the 2005 installation that sent New Zealand’s Venice Biennale pavilion into a national firestorm. After two decades in storage, the work now occupies a dedicated corridor, inviting visitors to walk through a kinetic, sound‑filled environment that still feels as unsettling as it did in Venice.\n\nThe original piece, presented under the collective name et al., was deliberately anonymous – its creators used pseudonyms such as P. Mule and L. Budd and refused interviews. The government‑funded project attracted fierce criticism, with politicians dubbing it a waste of taxpayers’ money and the media turning the debate into a spectacle about who should represent the country abroad.\n\nInside the gallery the installation consists of five autonomous metal units that glide on tracks, each emitting computer‑generated voices that recite a range of human beliefs. The soundscape shifts from speech to music to birdsong, while found objects – old computers, chairs, egg trays – are arranged like the remnants of an abandoned factory, reinforcing the work’s themes of colonisation, technology and belief.\n\nCurator Natasha Conland, who also oversaw the original Venice presentation, frames the 2026 showing as a “21st‑birthday” update, incorporating AI‑generated interpretations into the audio. Visitors seem to engage more calmly than the heated public debate of 2005, suggesting a maturing attitude toward experimental art and its public funding.\n\nThe revival raises the question whether New Zealand has finally moved beyond the old “art‑bashing” narrative. As the autonomous systems continue their slow patrol, the work quietly asks viewers to consider how belief systems are programmed, and whether the controversy that once surrounded it has become part of the artwork’s own history.

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